AP sources: Taliban video shows captive US soldier
AP – This video frame grab taken from a Taliban propaganda video
released Saturday, July 18, 2009 shows an …
By PAMELA HESS and LOLITA BALDOR, Associated Press Writers
Pamela Hess And Lolita Baldor, Associated Press Writers – 43 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base
in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured,
appeared on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban, two U.S.
defense officials said.
The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the
start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript, gray outfit.
Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier's dog tag up to
the camera. His name and ID number are clearly visible. He is shown eating
at one point and sitting on a bed.
The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon
pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier's family, says
his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a
Web site pointed out by the Taliban. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed
to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier.
The soldier said the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he
lagged behind on a patrol.
He is interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on
the war, which he calls extremely hard, his desire to learn more about
Islam and the morale of American soldiers, which he said was low.
Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video:
"Well I'm scared, scared I won't be able to go home. It is very
unnerving to be a prisoner."
He begins to answer questions in a matter-of-fact and sober voice,
occasionally facing the camera, looking down and sometimes looking to the
questioner on his left.
He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his
girlfriend.
"I have my girlfriend, who is hoping to marry," he said. "I
have a very, very good family that I love back home in America. And I miss
them every day when I'm gone. I miss them and I'm afraid that I might not
ever see them again and that I'll never be able to tell them that I love
them again and I'll never be able to hug them."
He is also prompted his interrogators to give a message to the American
people.
"To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what
it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring
them home," he said. "Please, please bring us home so that we
can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our
lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own
country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have
that power."
The video is not a continuous recording it appears to stop and start
during the questioning.
It is unclear from the video whether the July 14 date is authentic. The
soldier says that he heard that a Chinook helicopter carrying 37 NATO
troops had been shot down over Helmand. A helicopter was shot down in
southern Afghanistan on July 14, but it was carrying civilians on a
reported humanitarian mission for NATO forces. All six Ukrainian
passengers died in the crash, and a child on the ground was killed.
On July 2, the U.S. military said an American soldier had disappeared
after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan
counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner. A U.S. defense
official said the soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of
the unit on June 30 and was first listed as "duty status whereabouts
unknown."
Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military
as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away
any information to captors.
But Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in
eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan from an American
base. The region is known to be Taliban-infested.
The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as
Haqqani network and is led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has
accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings including the
July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60
people. The Haqqani group also was linked to an assassination attempt on
Afghan president Hamid Karzai early last year.
On Saturday, a U.S. military official in Kabul, Col. Greg Julian, said the
U.S. was "still doing everything we can to return him safely."
Julian said U.S. troops had distributed two flyers in the area where the
soldier disappeared. One of them asked for information on the missing
soldier and offered a $25,000 reward for his return. The other said
"please return our soldier safely" or "we will hunt
you," according to Julian.
___
Associated Press writers Robert H. Reid in Kabul and Christine Simmons in
Washington contributed to this report.
================================
U.S.
: American Soldier
Captured in
Afghanistan
By
Rajiv
Chandrasekaran and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington
Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 2, 2009; 7:22 AM
CAMP LEATHERNECK
, Afghanistan,
July 2 -- A U.S. soldier missing from his base in eastern
Afghanistan
since Tuesday is believed to have been captured by Taliban militants, the
military said Thursday.
In
a statement issued from
U.S.
military headquarters in
Kabul
, officials said "we are exhausting all available resources to
ascertain his whereabouts and provide for his safe return."
Military
officials in
Afghanistan
, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
discuss the situation, said the soldier appears to have walked off his
base into an unsecured area. It was not clear why he had apparently done
so.
Agence-France
Press reported that a commander of the Taliban's hard-line Haqqani faction
claimed Thursday that his militia had captured the soldier, along with his
three Afghan guards, in the Yousuf Khail district of Paktika province.
That report could not be independently confirmed.
The
soldier was not part of the large-scale
assault launched on Taliban forces in southern
Afghanistan
early Thursday. That operation, which involves about 4,000 troops from the
2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, was encountering only light resistance,
officials said. But the military expects the Taliban to respond more
harshly once troops move into towns and began patrols.
The
military said it would not provide additional information about the
missing soldier, because it feared that doing do could place him in
further jeopardy.
Wilgoren
reported from Washington
============================================================================
Report:
Missing
U.S.
soldier sold to clan
KABUL
,
Afghanistan
, July 2 (UPI) -- A missing
U.S.
soldier
thought to have been captured in southeastern
Afghanistan
has been sold to a militant clan, a
U.S.
military official said Thursday.
The
unidentified senior military official told CNN the soldier, whose name was
not released, was captured along with three Afghan soldiers and then sold
to a militant group led by warlord Siraj Haqqani.
The
official added Haqqani clan officials are discussing ways to legitimize
taking custody of the
U.S.
soldier.
The
soldier went missing Tuesday after reportedly leaving his small outpost
alone and apparently unarmed.
Taliban
commander Mulvi Sangeen said later the soldier was captured along with
three Afghan troops by Taliban forces.
Sangeen
claimed the soldier was apprehended while drunk following a visit to a military
post in the Yousaf Khel district. CNN said an anonymous
U.S.
military source has denied the soldier was intoxicated while Sangeen's
account of events has gone unverified.
|
